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Columbus school board to adopt hands-on approach

Columbus school attendance scandal

Columbus City Schools employees -- and perhaps others in schools throughout the state -- are accused of falsifying students' records to improve their schools' standing on state report cards. Read the complete series.

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The Columbus Board of Education yesterday put a stake in the heart of “policy governance” — its
hands-off system of oversight that some have charged fostered the environment for the district’s
data-rigging scandal to grow.

But completely rewriting the rules that mandate how employees carry out their duties will take
months, as the first board work session to draft a new policy manual became bogged down in details
such as who needs to be held responsible for what.

While policy governance generally gave a broad directive to the superintendent to be responsible
for almost everything, the new documents will be “a much more comprehensive policy, a more complete
policy, and really a set of directions for everyone in the district,” said Ed Swartz, a consultant
with Neola, the organization assisting the board with the rewrite.

That will pay off if and when the board changes superintendents, because the successor will be
left with a policy that gives a framework over how things are to work, Swartz said.

Neola has been working with a review committee made up of district employees and community
members to draft a suggested policy to forward to the board. When the rewrite is complete, policy
governance will be gone, replaced by a system in which members are actively engaged in oversight of
the district’s $1.3 billion a year operation, said board member Dominic Paretti, who is leading the
effort.

Despite being elected officials, board members were instructed under policy governance not to “
express individual negative judgments” about the superintendent or any operation of the district,
except in private meetings. Board members were advised that they were to “repeat explicitly stated
board decisions” and “criticize privately, praise publicly.” Violating those codes could lead to a
member being removed from leadership or committee positions and publicly censured, the policy
said.

Members were kept at arm’s length from operations, delegating power to the superintendent to
make decisions as long as they could be reasonably justified by a board policy. The superintendent
was empowered to “establish all further policies, make all decisions, establish all practices and
develop all activities” that he or she pleased, even if the board disagreed.

The new draft says that no board member “shall be denied in a timely manner facts or materials
required for the proper performance” of board duties, and members can “express personal opinions.”
The board “may assume jurisdiction over any dispute or controversy,” it says.

While policy governance prohibited the board from communicating with the superintendent’s staff
except through the superintendent, the new draft “desires to maintain open channels of
communication between (the board) and the staff,” but with the “basic line of communication”
through the superintendent.

“We can talk to whom we want to talk to,” which will make the board relevant, Paretti said. “We
always have been, but we just delegated it away. Now, we’re going to be a relevant board.”

State Auditor Dave Yost specifically blamed policy governance for contributing to an environment
where administrators felt free to play fast and loose with student data, breaking Ohio law, safe in
the belief that their board wouldn’t scrutinize them. Mayor Michael B. Coleman’s education
commission recommended ending policy governance, and the board now agrees.